


Bring Her Back to Me

by lizziebobizzy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, F/M, levi is intense and i want to break him what can i say, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 15:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1946250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizziebobizzy/pseuds/lizziebobizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Take me instead,” Levi begs desperately to whatever god is out there listening. Mikasa’s body is already cold. “Take me instead,” he pleads in a tear-filled voice, his fist clenched into the ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Her Back to Me

There’s a blood-curdling scream, and everyone is more surprised at _who_ is screaming than the scream itself because it’s in the voice of someone who never screams.

“Mikasa!” Levi doesn’t shout, or panic, for that matter, but Mikasa is _never_ taken off-guard, and especially not enough to raise her voice in fear—these thoughts are racing through his mind at a mile a minute. _Calm down!_ he orders himself; he has never before found it impossible to put humanity’s needs ahead of his own; he needs to partition his mind and be the level-headed commander humanity needs, but he _can’t_ , why can’t he, all he can think  is _Mikasa, Mikasa, Mikasa, please be okay. Please._

He swings over to the location of her voice, faster than he’s ever used 3DMG before, but slower than he needs to be; the air’s rushing in his ears, but it’s quieter than the pounding of his heart.

His heart, which jumps to his throat; he’s choking on it; he can’t breath when he sees Mikasa lying on the ground, that dark red stain on the ground beside her head—he hates that color, always have, but never has it filled him with rage and loathing (and fear) like it has now.

He kneels down beside her, cradles her softly, as gentle as he can. He has too much strength, always has, but now he just wants it _gone_ so he doesn’t accidentally hurt her.

She opens her eyes and the acceptance in them is almost too much to bear, he can’t take it, he’s taken so much already, why him, please no more.

“Lucky shot,” she rasps. “Seven-meter class, eight-meter, tops. I killed him but he got in a lucky hit right before. We talked about this. A one in a billion chance.”

They had. They never make mistakes, but they both recognize they’re not perfect, so sometimes they debate the probability of falling in battle. They decided a one in a billion chance for her and a one in a trillion chance for him after much arguing. Perhaps they had been taunting fate, but with monsters ten time your size breathing down your neck, fate no longer seemed so frightening.

Levi would take it all back if he could, anything to bring her back.

“You’re not going to die,” he tells her fiercely. “I haven’t even—”

His voice catches.

“I love you,” he says quietly. In normal situations (as normal as situations get in their world), he’d beat around the bush for a bit longer, consider the pointlessness of love in their dystopia, but there’s no point now. He recognizes that even as he refuses to admit it.

Her eyes are warm and soft, probably more tender than anyone but Levi could imagine superhuman Mikasa’s eyes to be, as she beckons him closer. He’d do anything she’d ask, and now is no exception.

He leans down, assuming she wants to tell him something and bringing the side of his head close to her mouths. She, however, summons a burst of energy to bring herself up to a sitting position—only Mikasa could do that, he thinks fondly, exasperatedly, when she’s suffering from a possible spinal cord injury and a definite concussion and major head wound—and he opens his mouth to complain and tell her to take better care of herself and then.

Her lips are on his, and Levi is. In awe. Because her lips are soft against his, and she slants them against his at a really delicious angle, but mostly he can feel her love in this kiss, and so he tangles one hand into her blood-matted hair and kisses her slowly.

She pulls her head back slowly, but she brings up a hand to his cheek to replace lost contact and wipes away the steady stream of water running down his cheek. She smiles sadly at him, and she’s matured so much in the time he’s known her, he wants to stomp his feet at the time unfairly stolen from him to explore the new depths of this newly matured woman, but that would waste time so he says nothing.

“I love you, asshole,” she says simply. “I love you, and you are strong. You will get past this—”

He shakes his head. “You’re going to live. Don’t you fucking think about dying on me,” he says quickly, powerfully. “I’ll carry you back—”

“No. You can’t move me without killing me. I’ve tried.”

“Then I’ll go get help—”

“No! You’re fast, but not that fast, Levi. There’s not enough time—Levi, stop, I know my limits, and it’s…it’s going to happen soon. _Please_ don’t leave me; I know it’s selfish, but I’d rather die with you here than alone in this godforsaken place.”

She’s lying back on the ground now, and she looks so helpless; Mikasa should never look helpless, not if he can help it, so Levi refuses to look, just buries his head in her shoulder and shakes his head.

She’s not even dying in some grand battle, in all her glory, some dumb seven-class just got lucky, and that cuts just as deep.

“Levi,” she says breathlessly, urgently. “Please. You’re the only one I can trust. Keep going, and protect my friends. Live to see a world where you don’t have to live in fear every second.”

“I can’t,” he says helplessly. “Not without you. You fucking brat, if you just leave me here—I’ll shove all your friends down a Titan’s throat, I’ll bury your body in complete shit, I’ll, I’ll—”

She grins, and the sight still makes him breathless, even after all these years. “I love you, Levi,” she says, and then she closes her eyes, and her chest stills, and all of sudden the enormity of what’s happening hits me and now _he_ can’t breathe, holy shit, shit shit shit, and he’s keeling over with the force of the grief that hits me.

“No,” he says hoarsely, and then—louder, because it doesn’t seem like anyone’s listening to his please—“NO!”

He was putting up a front, he realizes, so he didn’t distress her before she died, but he can’t keep it in anymore.

“Take me instead,” he begs desperately, his fist clenched in the ground, whispering the words into Mikasa’s shoulder. The tears flow freely now, he gives a sob, his whole chest feeling like it’s caving in, and blinks, wet eyelashes brushing against the side of her throat. “Please. Bring her back to me, whatever it takes, I don’t care—just bring her back.”

***

Omake:

The god of death considered the scrap of girl in front of him. She was audacious, he’d give her that. “And I’d do this for you because…?”

Misaki nodded at him smartly. “I was taken before my time by an event that, for all intents and purposes, should have never happened based on its likeliness of occurring, and I have things to do. I don’t belong here, and if you try and keep me, you’ll regret it.”


End file.
